Recalling Dodgers' Flight, Mayor Makes His Pitch for New Stadium

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Recalling how New York City lost the Dodgers after a previous mayor refused to help the team build a new baseball stadium in Brooklyn, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has begun to offer the economic justification -- and with it the political one -- for building the Yankees a new home on the West Side of Manhattan.

In news conferences on Tuesday and again yesterday, Mr. Giuliani said that while he felt an emotional bond with Yankee Stadium dating to his boyhood memories of Yankee heroes, the city had to do all it could to insure that the team's owner, George M. Steinbrenner 3d, does not move the team to New Jersey or anywhere else.

To do that, the Mayor is touting a proposal to build a new stadium above the rail yards beside the Hudson River, just south of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. On Tuesday, Mr. Giuliani said that revenue from a West Side stadium would be so high it "would be off the charts." Yesterday he said the city could not afford to repeat the mistakes of the past, ignoring the desires of one of the city's most valuable assets.

"It's also my responsibility to do the best that I can to make certain the Yankees stay in New York City." Mr. Giuliani said yesterday. "And that if, in fact, they are determined to leave the Bronx, that we not lose them to New Jersey, Tampa or someplace else."

No one has come right out and said Mr. Steinbrenner's Yankees plan to abandon their nostalgia-soaked 73-year-old stadium. But in his carefully measured remarks, the Mayor has made it clearer than ever that such a move is a distinct possibility and that the city had to have what he called "a fall-back strategy," namely a new stadium in Manhattan.

The Mayor has come to this point in the city's elaborate dance with the Yankees because Mr. Steinbrenner has made his displeasure with his team's current home clear, having already rejected several proposals over the last few years to renovate or rebuild Yankee Stadium. It is a dance like those that have been wrenching other cities desperate to keep or lure professional sports franchises, from Cleveland to San Francisco.

For now, all the participants seem determined to keep their options open to insure a strong negotiating position. Mr. Steinbrenner has suggested he would move the team to New Jersey if the city and state did not meet his demands. No one, it seems, wants to be the first to say the Yankees will leave the Bronx, even as signs increasingly point to a proposal for a new stadium.

For Mr. Giuliani, the stakes are extremely high. No mayor wants to preside over the loss of a major sports team, and the Yankees carry enormous cultural, economic and psychological significance for a city that lost not only the Dodgers and the Giants in baseball, but also the Jets and the Giants in football.

The Mayor, a Republican who has vowed to restore jobs and economic vitality to the city, showed how well he understood the stakes yesterday. He reminded reporters that the Dodgers moved out of Brooklyn in 1957 after Mayor Robert F. Wagner failed to help clear the way for a new stadium at the rail yards at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues in Brooklyn.

The team's owner, Walter O'Malley, had asked the city to condemn the property, but even though an authority was created to finance a stadium to replace Ebbets Field, the plan stalled. Mr. O'Malley then moved the team to Los Angeles, although speculation endures to this day that Mr. O'Malley was determined to relocate to the West Coast all along.

"That loss for Brooklyn was catastrophic," Mr. Giuliani said. "It has recovered now from it, I hope, but it went through an awful lot of very, very difficult time as a result of that. I don't want to see that happen."

The idea, floated a couple of years ago, for a new stadium in Manhattan has gained momentum with the completion of a report by Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum of Kansas City, Mo., that was commissioned last fall by the city and state and by Mr. Steinbrenner.

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The consultant studied the economic viability of four possible locations for the Yankees' home, including the rail yards of Manhattan, the current stadium and two other sites in the Bronx: Van Cortlandt Park and Pelham Bay Park.

While the report has not yet been made public, an administration official and a mayoral adviser both said yesterday that it offered the strongest argument for a West Side stadium, followed by rebuilding Yankee Stadium, while rejecting the other two.

The adviser, who insisted on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy surrounding the negotiations, said the proposal for the West Side would create "the pre-eminent sports venue in the world," with a retractable dome and the sort of amenities found in other new stadiums, like Camden Yards in Baltimore and Jacobs Field in Cleveland.

Mr. Steinbrenner, who had said a decision on a new home would be made this spring, has remained silent on the proposals, but the administration official said the owner took the consultant's findings seriously. "He values their advice," the official said.

Keeping the Yankees from moving out of the city, even if they left the Bronx, would surely win the Mayor political points, at least in some parts of the city. A new stadium would generate hundreds of new construction jobs in Manhattan and provide an economic stimulus to developers on the West Side.

At the same time, there are political risks. A new stadium would cost taxpayers money, not only for the financing of a new stadium, but also for the associated street improvements, and so forth, at a time the city and state are tightening their budgetary belts. One person familiar with the report said the new stadium would cost at least $800 million.

The Mayor's remarks have already prompted an outcry from two Borough Presidents, Fernando Ferrer of the Bronx and Ruth W. Messinger of Manhattan, both Democrats and potential mayoral challengers, who denounced what they called a wasteful proposal.

"At a time when you have schools that are crumbling, to spend $1 billion on baseball is nothing short of obscene," Mr. Ferrer said.

Mr. Ferrer joined City Councilman Israel Ruiz Jr. yesterday on the steps of City Hall to accuse the Mayor of pandering to Mr. Steinbrenner's desire to leave the Bronx, primarily, they said, because of its large number of black and Hispanic residents.

That prompted Mr. Steinbrenner's only public comment on the issue yesterday. "All this public relations bluster by Mr. Ferrer and Mr. Ruiz has been counterproductive," he said in a written statement.

A version of this article appears in print on April 4, 1996, on Page A00001 of the National edition with the headline: Recalling Dodgers' Flight, Mayor Makes His Pitch for New Stadium. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe